


Tales from above (the city that never sleeps)

by tinybox



Series: Rewind (fast forward) [1]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Humor, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-10 13:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17427194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinybox/pseuds/tinybox
Summary: Two weeks after the turtles are transported to the future, Cody takes all of them on a tour around New New York City.Along the way, Raph becomes one with nature, Don nearly gets run over (again), Mikey meets the love of his life, and Cody takes them to an antique store run by a man who might be a ninja in disguise.





	1. Chapter 1

 

There is a pigeon on Raph’s head.

So far, there are a total of three pigeons sitting on Raph; two pigeons are perched on either one of his shoulders, making him look like a bad-tempered version of Mother Teresa, if Mother Teresa had happened to have been a mutated turtle.

“I think that species of pigeon is either _Columba domestica_ or _Columba livia rustica_ , depending on if these species are still native to the city after a hundre-“

“Don?”

“Yes Raph?”

“Shuddup.” Another pigeon swoops down to settle on the back of Raph’s shell. The pigeon on Raph’s head is cooing softly. It’s almost adorable.

“Raph’s hogging all the chicks to himself,” Mikey crows, elbowing Leo in the shoulder, who, despite trying to keep a serious face, already has a half-grin forming. Raph, on the other hand, looks like he might strangle them all at any second. Normally, this would be a time to back out of punching range, but Don finds himself intrigued by the birds, and by their behavior. Is this common for pigeons of the future, he wonders, because as bold as the birds are from his time, he has never seen them act as tame as they are now.

It’s actually quite fascinating, Don thinks, that pigeons of the future look exactly the same as the ones from their time. There are probably minute differences in the genetic makeup, but he would have to scan one of the birds to find out for sure, and since he isn’t an expert in pigeon DNA, he would need a sample from a pigeon from their time. Would that be even possible to obtain?   

Meanwhile, Raph, clearly not caring about the genetic differences of birds from the past and future, had been shaking his arms, legs, and head in an attempt to shake the pigeons off to no avail. All his flailing was doing was making him look like he was having a seizure and/or trying to perform some kind of interpretative dance move.  
“Stupid, stinkin’ rats with wings,” he grumbles, scowling further as Mikey’s howling laughter grows louder.

 

The strangest thing about New New York City isn’t the weird outfits, or the technology that could have come out of those bad sci-fi movie from the ‘80s that Mikey religiously watched back home (and that he had nearly cried over when Cody told him that most of the movies from that time hadn’t been preserved.  

Raph had remarked that those movies were garbage anyway, to which Mikey responded that Raph just couldn’t appreciate fine art even if it bit him in the ass, and it ended up in a brief struggle in which Mikey ended up having to call uncle.)

Yes, there was a bunch of weird stuff about the future, and the above wasn’t nearly scratching the surface of the iceberg of oddity. But none of this compared to the strangest, yet simplest, change of them all.

It was that fact that they could just walk around in broad daylight like anyone else. That they could step out of the shadows. This was an experience that they never had, could have never have had back home in New York City. They’d caught glimpses of bustling city streets during the day, but it was another thing to be walking shoulder-to-shoulder with people just getting on with their daily lives, not even noticing their presence beyond a passing glance.

Sure, it may have lost its novelty after Don nearly got run over by a hovercar when he happened to step out in the wrong intersection, or when Raph got into a shouting match with an older man who’d he accidentally spilled lukewarm coffee on.

But still, it was both amazing and confusing all at once, because all their rules about not being seen by humans were all shattered the moment they arrived. 

 

It was Cody’s idea to take them on a tour around the area. “If you want,” he said, looking at his hands the whole time, “I could show you some cool areas to hang out in, or at least, places I’ve been to that are close by.”

“Sure, why not.” Mikey agreed, lazily flipping through the channels in an attempt to find something worth watching. “You’d think that in the future, there would be a ton of shows and stuff, but even with more than a billion channels, there’s still nothing on.”

Just like there was nothing on the television, there was little to do in the real world, so the rest of them decided to come along as well. Donnie was the trickiest to convince, as he had planned to stay holed up in his newly claimed lab, but a few words from Master Splinter about the importance of spending time with one’s family managed to guilt trip him into coming along.

And now, Donnie thinks, there are pigeons attached to Raph with no clear sign of ever leaving. He should have brought a notepad to document this.

Cody, who had been waiting in line at a food truck, came back armed with a pizza box.

“Raph?” Codey asked.

“Yeah?”

“You seem to have-“

“What?”

“Well, pigeons-“

“Could’ve fooled me. In fact, I didn’t notice them until you pointed them out. Thank you Cody, for informing me.” Sarcasm dripped out with every word.

“Here, I can help.” Cody said, reaching into the pizza box and pulling out a slice. With one hand, he tossed the pizza a few yards away. Immediately, the pigeons swarmed the slice, forgetting Raph in their ravenous hunger.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Turns out Raph is no longer quite a hit with the birds, am I right? Ow!”

Raph, with considerable restraint, punched Mikey right in the face instead of murdering him on the spot.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

"There are many types of love, and out of all of them, true love is the rarest and hardest to obtain. Most spend their whole lives forever searching for the other half of their soul and never find it.  
Today I have found them. The one who will complete me. The greatest being in the whole world."

"Mikey, you're holding up a piece of pizza."

"This is no ordinary pizza. This is my one true love."

Leo takes a bite out of his slice, hoping that if he says nothing, the insanity will pass him by. Unfortunately, he is not successful. "Leo, tell that idiot that you can't marry a slice of pizza," Raph insists, "maybe he'll listen to our fearless leader." As always, when he says 'fearless leader', he manages to sound apathetic and scathing at the same time, with a hint of humor thrown in.  
Leo turns to Don, hoping to gain an ally, only to find that Donny has abandoned their conversation and is now chatting with Cody about something.  
That traitor.  
"Mikey," Leo begins, "you can't marry a piece of pizza."

"Ya see-"

"You have to take it on a date first. You can't just marry someone without getting to know them first." Leo finishes.

"I hate all of you."

"Awww, that's basically 'I love you' in Raph-talk!"

"Shuddup Mikey."


	3. Chapter 3

Donnie is the first one to notice the store. "Relics of the 20th Century," he reads out loud, prompting a curious look from Leo.  
"Oh, I know that place," Cody informs them. "Actually, a friend of mine works there, and his uncle owns the store. I haven't seen either of them in a while, do you mind if I step in to say hi? You can leave, or come with if you want."

"Cody, dude, the store seems to be closed. Are you sure your friend's uncle won't mind you coming in after hours?" Mikey asked, casually cracking each knuckle one at a time on both hands as he spoke.  
Leo winces at the sound. "Mikey, don't do that in public. Or in private. It's bad for your hands."

"Actually Leo, a study has shown that cracking your knuckles doesn't seem to have any long term degenerative mmPPffhh"  
Mid-sentence, Raphael slaps a hand over Don's mouth.  
For such a smart guy, Donny can be a real idiot. 

"Anyway!" Cody interjects, still hesitant around the people (or rather,turtles) that were once (and still are, just in a different way) his heroes, "The Old Man doesn't mind me coming in. His store hours are usually later, but sometimes he closes the shop up on a slow day or if doesn't feel like working anymore."  
He produces what looks like a credit card out of one of his pockets. "He gave me this holo-key, and said I would always be welcome around here. I'm sure he won't mind meeting you guys!"

From the title of the store, Leonardo had assumed this was an antique shop, similar to the one April had back home. In many ways, it was.  
"Woah, look at all this stuff." Mikey exclaimed. "There's way more stuff in here than April's store. But a lot more crowded, too. I like it."  
Raph thumped him over the head. "It's cause it reminds you of your own room, you idiot."  
"What do you mean by that? Your room is just as bad!"

Leo leaves them to their bickering. He wanders the store, Cody trailing behind. Mikey was right when he said the room was crowded, there are shelves and shelves of items placed together with no particular rhyme or reason. On one he spots a rubber duck causally hanging out near a bunch of CD's with titles such as "Unlocking Your Inner Child." There are tangled yo-yo's wound up around plastic trophies and snow globes, and he even spots a rusty sword hanging on the wall that looks like it might be real.  
Turning around another aisle, he sees a register, and a man sitting behind it. At first glance, he appears not to have noticed them, his gaze focused on a well worn comic book, but without looking up he drawls, "Guess I have company."  
"Hey Old Man," Cody responds, his voice much more confident than Leo had ever heard him.

"That's the Old Man?" Mikey interrupts, coming up from behind the shelves, "He doesn't look that old to me!" 

"Mikey!" Leo whisper-shouts, but the older man laughs. "Nah, it's alright. It's kind of an...inside joke between me and the brat here." Leaning back on his chair, he regards them with a strange expression that quickly vanishes. 

The 'Old Man', as Cody referred to him, introduces himself as Matthias, but said, "You can call me Matt if you want." He, like Mikey said earlier, isn't that old, although Donnie doesn't have that much experience with humans. The first thought that Donny had when he saw him was, 'wow that person has a lot of hair.' Matt's head is covered in thick, reddish curls that stick up every which way, only beginning to grey around the edges. It's the most hair any of them have ever seen on a human that wasn't an anime character.

"How's your uncle doing?" Matt asks. Cody grimaces.  
"You know, if you were more polite to him he wouldn't have kicked you out that one time."  
"Nah."  
"Wait," Raph interjects, "Darius kicked you out of the tower? What for?"  
"Eh, we just had a little disagreement."  
"You said you would beat him to death with a rubber chicken."  
"Eh, I was only joking. Kind of."  
Matthias doesn't look like someone who could kill anyone, with or without a rubber chicken. Even sitting down, he seems to be a pretty reedy dude.

"So," Matthias says,"you must be the turtles. Nice to see you. You know, word on the street is going around that you guys are just clones of the original. Personally, I doubt it, but hey, what do I know?"  
"We're the real deal!" Mikey boasts, giving Matt the double finger gun salute. "No one can replicate my awesome-ness!"  
"So, Old Man, is Lorenzo around?"  
"Lorenzo?" Leo asks out of formality, already guessing that this is the friend Cody had mentioned.  
There are footsteps on the stairs behind the counter. 

"Hey Lorenzo!"  
"Hello. Nice to see you." The teen, identified as Lorenzo, speaks in a very monotone voice. This must be usual behavior, because Cody grins, saying, "Glad to hear you're doing good."  
Lorenzo regards them under a fringe of dark hair, with eyes so dark that the iris and the pupil are interchangeable. It's kind of eerie, Mikey thinks, to be pinned under a gaze like that.  
"Hmmm."  
"Hey dude!" Mikey attempting to break the ice, metaphorically speaking, throws out the first thing he can think of, "Nice, um...hair?"  
Lorenzo blinks. "My first impression is...I hate all of you."  
With that, he turned sharply around and walked briskly back up the stairs.


End file.
